This article is part of Hyperallergic‘s Pride Month Seriesfeaturing an interview with a different emerging or mid-career transgender or non-binary artist each weekday throughout June.

Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi, now known as the mad artist, describes herself as an “artist, curator and mentor”. Trans woman working in all disciplines, the artist also founded the perfocraZe international artist residency (pIAR) in the Ghanaian city of Kumasi, where it is based. (Applications are currently open for the 2024 residency period.) Her long-running public performances, which frequently deal with anti-black and anti-queer violence, are deliberately difficult to watch. “I wanted to extend my body, my breath and my life into public spaces to explore and exploit my own vulnerability,” crazinisT artisT says in the interview below, explaining his decision to go beyond painting. The work of the artist crazinisT is particularly poignant against a backdrop of draconian anti-LGBTQ+ legislation introduced by the Government of Ghana last year.

Hyperallergic: What is the current orientation of your artistic practice?

mad artist: My current focus is on the residency I lead in Ghana, perfocraZe International Artists Residency (pIAR). My hope is that our studio and residence will gradually infest the Ghanaian Parliament, politicians, our education system, Ghanaian spirituality, religious societies and our financial institutions to write the history of arts and homosexuality in Ghana and Africa . I believe that we artists are the healers and spiritual pillars of any successful society. It was my motivation to launch the crazinisT artisT studio, and later pIAR, Banquetand now the TTO Mentorship Program in order to create visibility, resistance against homophobia and acceptance of the queer community.

We are currently preparing an upcoming exhibition for our mentees in July called BEFORE THE RAINwhich is the final presentation of a 12-month interdisciplinary mentorship program that responds to the urgency and agency of global networking, “sorority” and international solidarity across diverse artistic disciplines featuring the works of 10 mentees.

H: In what ways, if any, does your gender identity play a role in your experience as an artist?

CALIFORNIA: Without my gender and race identity or my “total being”, my work does not exist because I am what I create and I create what I am. Becoming a performance artist was not an artistic discipline but rather a vocation. It was a huge shift from painting as art to performance as our life and our death. It’s the first step to getting out of the canvas, getting my body out of its flatness, its conventions and its frames. I wanted to expand my body, breath and life into public spaces to explore and exploit my own vulnerability.

This is how I began to confront my internal wounds and fears ten years ago as a gay person who had been living in the closet for over 30 years. Along the way, I decided to create my own ritual of becoming, rites of passage, and transitional healings, which led to a two-year series of photographic, video, and performance works titled frozen (Rituals of becoming) (2015-2017). Other works in public confront the violence we experience and reveal our pains and wounds as you can witness in the Holier Than Thous (2021), “dZikudZikui-aBiku-aBiikus” (2018), “eAtme” (2016) , “agbanWu” (2017), and many more

H: Which artists inspire your work today? What are your other sources of inspiration?

CALIFORNIA: My inspiration and motivation stem primarily from my own urgency as a queer person and the struggle of our community as a whole – our stories of survival, our hopes, dreams and fears. However, I admire other artists and activists such as Jeli Atiku from Nigeria, Zanele Muholi from South Africa and many emerging young radical artists across the continent who are also confronting injustice and oppression with their artistic wisdom. .

H: What are your hopes for the LGBTQIA+ community right now?

CALIFORNIA: I hope that all our efforts and struggles will bring us freedom, peace, love and collective joy. It is my greatest wish that the current Anti-LGBTQIA+ Bill in the Ghanaian Parliament is defeated and defeated and that lawmakers strengthen human rights laws that will protect the queer community by criminalizing all forms of discrimination, of abuse and harassment that the community continues to experience every day